PROGRESS IN BIOLOGICAL INQUIRIES, 1936 23 
PUGET SOUND SALMON FISHERIES 
Chief attention during the year has been given to the preparation 
of a report entitled, “The Salmon and Salmon Fisheries of Swiftsure 
Bank, Puget Sound and the Fraser River.” This report has been 
prepared to show, in a general way, the history and development of 
these fisheries, the changes in the various forms of gear, the shifting 
in intensity and location of the fishing, and the effect that these 
factors have had on the abundance of the five species of salmon of 
this region. These fisheries at present yield about 115,000,000 pounds 
of raw salmon per year, valued at between 1014 and 1114 millions of 
dollars. The sections dealing with the history and development of 
the gill-net fishery of the Fraser River, the trap fishery of Puget 
Sound, and the life history and abundance of the sockeye, pink, and 
chum salmon were prepared by Dr. George A. Rounsefell. Those 
dealing with the purse seine and troll fisheries and with the coho and 
king salmon were prepared by George B. Kelez. 
Sockeye —The Puget Sound sockeye investigation, which is pri- 
marily concerned with studies of the causes and extent of the de- 
cline in abundance of sockeye salmon in the Puget Sound-Fraser 
River region, was continued under the direction of Dr. Rounsefell. 
The commercial catch was again sampled for size and age compo- 
sition, but owing to the curtailment of the 1936 fishing season by 
strikes, data from only 1,200 sockeyes in 24 samples were obtained 
during the period from July 29 to August 31 and no chums could 
be measured. No pink salmon were sampled, as they are absent 
from Puget Sound in even-numbered years. Extensive collections 
of daily catches by traps, purse seines, and gill nets have been made 
from these data, curves are being constructed for each year to show 
the seasonal abundance of sockeye in the various forms of gear in 
each area. When completed, these data will yield valuable informa- 
tion on the routes of migration, the changes in abundance in differ- 
ent portions of the season, and the effect of one form of gear on the 
catches of another. 
Coho.—Coho salmon in Washington have declined markedly in 
abundance during recent years. Experimental work has therefore 
been undertaken with the double purpose of providing information, 
relating to rebuilding individual populations through artificial pro- 
pagation and transplantation of fingerlings, and of furnishing sta- 
tistical studies of the fishery. Marking experiments have been 
undertaken with special reference to the success of liberation of 
hatchery-produced fingerlings of different sizes and to the value of 
transplanting fish to “foreign” stream systems. These experiments 
also provide information on the life history of the species. Analyses 
are being made of the relative contribution of various districts of 
the region to the commercial fisheries. This work has continued 
under the direction of Mr. Kelez during the past year. 
Returns of adult fish from the Samish River marking experi- 
ments appeared this year. In these experiments, conducted in 1934, 
26,000 fry hatched at the Samish station in February were marked 
and liberated in May in Friday Creek, a tributary of the Samish 
River. Another portion of the Samish fry were held in ponds until, 
November, at which time 26,000 more were marked and liberated. 
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